My John Turner story: some years ago, he sat in the row ahead of my on a flight to Calgary - in Economy! When we landed, he had some difficulty in getting his bag out of the overhead compartment, so I helped him.

This will sound corny, but I said to him, “Mr Turner, thank you for all that you’ve done for our country”. (I’m no Liberal, but I was sincere in my corniness.) He looked startled, and asked me my name, and what I did for a living. I told him. We shook hands, and went our ways.

About six weeks later, I was in a restaurant in Toronto, entertaining some people I hoped would make a donation to the law school - which for good or ill is a big part of a dean’s job these days.

Who walks into the restaurant, but John Turner. He sees me, walks over, and thrusts out his hand. “Ian!”, he exclaimed, “It’s great to see you again!”

As you might imagine, my stock shot up dramatically with the potential donors - both of whom, unbeknownst to me beforehand, were Liberals. And that, in my view, was John Turner in a nutshell: he had met me once, in a very different setting (and fifteen hundred miles away).

Yet he remembered me. And he went out of his way to make me look good in the eyes of people I was hosting. He didn’t need to do any of that. But he did. And I benefitted from his graciousness. He was the epitome of a gentleman!